Schools and Society

verse 6

you sat and laughed

& wept & nothing happened

whele your brothers

burned out in spasms

& returned with images

of the wind

you were the uns-een

master of words

who laid the muse

on an alter of energy

& then something from’

a dream seemed to

tell   you   to   move-on

you looked for the muse’s 

sister   in  your  sleep

even her mother!

you found you could give

a thousand faces   to   a   lady

in the dark

but she never really changed

give her 80,000 words

to whisper  in  the  dawn

& somehow  she  never

really   changed  the  sound

you called her different

names to bring her out

but  she  never  moved

Verse 5

you sat & laughed

& wept  &  nothing happened

while your brithers’burned out in spasms

& returned with images

of the wind

you were the uns-en

master of words

who laid the muse

on an altar of energy

& then something from

a dream seemed to

tell you to move on

you looked for the muse’s

sister in your sleep

even her mother!

you found you could give

a thousand faces to a lady

in the dark

you found you could give

a thousand faces to a lady

in the dark

but she never really changed

give her 80,000 words

to whisper in the dawn

& somehow she never

really changed the the sound 

within

you called her different

names to bring her out

but she never moved

Part Two

you had the deepest eyes 

as a child

when you curiously looked

up at the sun

and restlessly wrote

the world’s greatest [poem

within your head

and your brothers

drinking the clear water

of the universe

wrote their words with

gold on sacred blue

later they sat beck

in the soft  fat  of  their  

glutted egis

& talked into eternity’ about the mysteries.

after the poetic-orgasim

you were still haunted

by some young girl’s face

a skull   hovering   in   the   

untouchable  distance

you  sat  waiting

to  meet  those

hollow  eyes

you sat & watched

your  brothers  leap

into  imaginary  suns

trying  to  grasp THAT

part 3

the mis-use of machinery

it  is  the  trees  weeping

in  the  night  wind

the  mis-use  of  the  mind

turn  away

I have nothing to say

in all this darkness

everyone wins from

words that carry light

from the closed doors

of the mind

I have nothing to say

why don’t you just sit there

and   die

a little

everyday

waiting for some naive

child carrying the

crippled bird of yr love

to say the things you are

afraid to say & perhaps

in  a  millennium or two

you will begin to

understand

that   naive   child 

was  you

and   you   murdered   him

in   the   darkness.

a flash!     & you were told

it was insight – intuition

satori  –  an idea?

it’s only one of the old doors

with its rusty hinges

swinging open for 

a moment

in the universe

let this be written

on the invisible tombstones

you turned away

from yr infinite self

I have nothing to say to you

won’t listen to the sound of

the invisible ocean

continually questioning

its own existence and

laughing at its    own  fat   waves

(and the old tibetan lady

  who wrote the beautiful book

   is probably watching color t.v.

    at this minute)

what can I tell you

of re-opening those doors

I have nothing to say

you turned away

to pretend

“it is in-evitable”

Starting today, September 28, 2019, I plan to publish one stanza at a time all 20 of d.a.Levy’s Tombstone As A lonely Charm . Here then is stanza 1.

Part I

I have nothing to say

if you turn away

they made a machine

of / yr mind  -once-

contained infinite doors 

&

who let them be closed

one by one

not  – I –

have nothing 

to say

to you

won’t listen –

turn  away,

you have built machine’s 

to colonize yrself     ,

& Later you will lose

your Self-Turn away

the wind of the universe

lies behind those doors

who closed them

one by one

the pieces

of yr mind

a flash!     & you were told

it was insight – intuition

satori  –  an idea?

it’s only one of the old doors

with its rusty hinges

swinging open for 

a moment

in the universe

let this be written

on the invisible tombstones

you turned away

from yr infinite self

I have nothing to say to you

won’t listen to the sound of

the invisible ocean

continually questioning

its own existence and

laughing at its    own  fat   waves

(and the old tibetan lady

  who wrote the beautiful book

   is probably watching color t.v.

    at this minute)

what can I tell you

of re-opening those doors

I have nothing to say

you turned away

to pretend

“it is in-evitable”

A Psychopath is defined as someone who has no conscience and is therefore without moral qualms regarding his behavior. A Sociopath is a person with extreme antisocial attitudes and behaviors aided by a lack of conscience in their choice of words and behaviors. In both cases it is the fundamental lack of empathy and concern for social consequence that defines their behaviors. Both are expressions of anomie manifesting a profound lack of socialization. They represent a subscription to a belief system that excludes the general welfare as consequential.

A psychopath doesn’t have a conscience. When he lies he may pretend to but won’t experience moral qualms. He won’t feel your pain or loss.  On the other hand, a sociopath typically may have a vestigial conscience. He may know taking your money is wrong, and he might even feel some vague sense of guilt or remorse, but that doesn’t inhibit his behavior and it will be easily rationalized. In either case both sociopaths and psychopaths exhibit a profound and consequential lack of empathy, an inability to stand in someone else’s shoes, to understand how they feel, and, most importantly. they have no regard for the effects of their actions. People with these personality types see others as objects, as instruments to be used and manipulated for their own benefit. And, yes, someone can be both a psychopath and a sociopath.

Here is a good example of sociopathy and anomie at work at the federal level: After instituting a $1.5 trillion tax cut and signing off on a $675 billion budget for the Department of Defense, Senate Majority Leader McConnell said that the only way to lower the record-high federal deficit would be to cut entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Note that he didn’t list cuts to Congressional health care, retirement, or pay nor higher taxes on wealth. It is interesting to note that McConnell has over the course of his political career managed to build a net worth of $27 million on a salary of $193,000 a year. Perhaps he skipped lunch and took a city bus to work. Perhaps he is ultra parsimonious. Or might it be something else? He did once write a book and he and his wife received a large lovely wedding gift of money from her father, a wealthy Chinese shipping magnate. Whatever his sources may be, Mr. McConnell has socked away a fortune – doing well while doing no “good”.

 How did we come to this place where sociopaths and psychopaths are actively working to destroy the American social contract, from health care and social security to voting rights? Look at the late David Koch’s wish list of what parts of the social contract he wanted destroyed and ask yourself why:

Department of Energy

Environmental Protection Agency

Food and Drug Administration

Occupational Health and Safety Administration

Federal Communications Commission

National Labor Relations Board

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Central Intelligence Agency

Federal Reserve

Social Security

Welfare

Public Schools

Taxation

“Make America Great Again!” Great? The dictionary says to be “great” is to be considerably above the norm or average. Just when was America last great? In the era when it created these programs the sociopaths are trying so hard to destroy. Are the sociopaths paving a road for a Fascist “Leader” to take over? This has worked historically and there is no reason to believe it couldn’t happen here. We have already arrived at a place where American people greet the President with Nazi salutes. 

Perhaps the United States will always be a social frontier,  always unfinished with rough edges.  We swing from this extreme to the next. Perhaps human beings are just this way – some get “it” and some don’t. Some people care and some don’t. Must it be this way?

Emanuele Corso | Penasco, New Mexico
I want to thank the NYT for their clear and unmitigated assessment of Ms Nielsen’s tenure and her execution of Trump’s cruel and inhumane treatment of refugees. I would say the woman got what she deserves – to paraphrase an ancient wisdom: whatsoever ye do unto others so shall it be done unto you. The acts themselves are despicable and reflect both on her and her boss but even more sadly they reflect on us as a nation and one must ask: What have we become in the tenure of the current administration? We have to ask of ourselves – what became of: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.” ?

Wikipedia offers that,  “…the first mirrors used by humans were most likely pools of dark, still water, or water collected in a vessel of some sort.” Mirrors fascinate as much as they serve useful purposes, to see oneself “as others see us”. A historian of mirrors cites Socrates who thought, “the mirror can aid moral meditation between man and himself.” The reflected image, in one way or another, both fascinates and serves utilitarian purposes. Whether an ancient human looking into a deep dark pool of still water recognizing himself or a modern man making sure he has shaved the last errant hair from his face,“There I am!” and now, here I go into the world, ready for the day, ready for what’s to come.

Another mirror is a nation’s reflection in its leaders. Societies have had their “finest hours” under the leadership of men like Winston Churchill and John F Kennedy to mention two. On the other hand, it oftentimes takes extraordinary courage to look into a dark mirror to learn what has become of one’s society or what has been there all along but we have avoided looking at it. We all age of course and in that outward reflected image we can see, like it or not, what we have become. Looking into the mirror that represents current events and the conduct of our societies presents another range of similar possibilities. For example, a crowd chanting full-throat, “Lock her up!” is one of those mirrors. View historical newsreels of Hitler and Mussolini working their crowds with similar tactics – identify an enemy, vilify them, follow the leader into a future where they will be dealt with, you can see the pattern. All of those events and consequences are mirrors of their societies. And so now we have come full circle in the land of the brave and the home of the free to a mirror held up by the current elected President. Take a look. Do you like what you see? Is that you? Are those your neighbors? Your fellow Americans?

“For now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know fully even as also I was fully known.” Corinthians 13:12

On November 4^th, 1944, when I was six years old, my mother and I took the short city bus ride from Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts, to Springfield where we stood below the railroad station’s great stone arch. There was an enormous crowd  packed elbow to elbow stretching back for several blocks. On that day, Franklin D Roosevelt who had confronted the 1929-1939 “Great Depression” and created the “New Deal”, was greeted by working people who, like my parents, had suffered through the  “Great Depression”. At the rampart of the overpass the great man appeared, by then afflicted by polio, and was greeted with the most tumultuous expression of respect and affection I have ever experienced. There was no resentment, no anger, only respect and gratitude for the better future he had nurtured. This was the America that defined my basic understanding of our social contract, my social reality. This was the America I grew up in. This was the country I eventually joined the military to serve. It was a very different country, certainly not equal for all, certainly not without fault but very different from what we have become today. This memory is the mirror I look into when attempting to understand the complexity of these times. And what do we see?

Are we ready to go face to face with what our nation is becoming? Is that really us reflected or merely some minority of loud demonstrative fellow Americans riled up to some kind of fever pitch by an unscrupulous political cheer leader? And if immigrants are today’s targets who will be tomorrows? You perhaps? Your neighbors and people of color in the supermarket? My grandparents on both sides were immigrants and the stories they told reflected the rejection and ridicule they faced not unlike what we are witnessing now. Today, however, the Cheerleader-In-Chief is the President of the United States and his audience are the descendants of the same earlier immigrants. Surely this cannot not truly be what we have become, what we are as a people, as a nation. What is at stake is basic respect for your fellow Americans, our immigrant forebears, our fellow human beings, and ourselves. And, if for no other reason than that, we must live with each other or fail as a nation.